Following the final meeting of the USOC Executive Committee being held before the Salt Lake City 2002 Games, officials of the Games said the security will be “unprecedented”. “We want to take the concern of security away from the athletes so they can concentrate on performance. We simply want to provide a safe environment – for U.S. athletes and athletes around the world. We have taken a very thorough and robust approach to security, with coordination among various agencies and a means of detection, prevention, and response that I think is unprecedented”, said USOC chief executive officer Lloyd Ward. USOC president Sandra Baldwin said that an additional allocation of more than $300 million has been made for security in the Salt Lake City area. Ward and Baldwin are traveling to IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland today to meet with IOC president Jacques Rogge and then stop in Barcelona Spain to visit former IOC head Juan Antonio Samarach.
Several government officials have indicated that U.S. President George W. Bush will be attending the opening ceremony of the Salt Lake City 2002 Games. Should that be the case, the Secret Service will ground all flights while the President lands and takes off. The same is true for Vice President Dick Cheney who is expected to attending the closing ceremony. Secret Service spokesman Marc Connolly said, “I can’t comment on the exact time frame, but I think it would be a sufficient amount that we would recommend a window, if you will, before, during and after the ceremonies”.
And finally, the United States Postal Service has released a set of four stamps featuring figure skating, ice hockey snowboarding and ski jumping, in time for the 2002 Winter Games. They are the latest in a long line of stamps paying tribute to the Olympic Games. The Vermont-based firm of Jager DiPaola Kemp is credited for the stamp designs, under the art direction of Phil Jordan. The images of the figure skater, hockey player, snowboarder and ski jumper were based on photographs, and the line designs of their playing venues were computer generated. The stamps are being printed in sheets of 20, with a total issue of 80 million stamps. They will be available from local stamp dealers shortly.
